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Executives from companies including Anton Corp, Charades, The Match Factory and Netflix are among the speakers set for San Sebastian International Film Festival’s third annual Creative Investors’ Conference, which takes place September 24 and 25.

Organised in collaboration with CAA Media Finance, the conference line-up includes Bobby Allen, svp of production at Mubi; Louis Balsan, evp for distribution and acquisitions at production-financing firm Anton Corp; Caroline Benjo, partner at Haut et Court; Teresa Moneo, director of international original film at Netflix; Christine Vachon of Killer Films; Michael Weber, managing director of The Match Factory; Fabien Westerhoff, CEO of Film Constellation; Bronte Payne...

CAA Media Finance’s Roeg Sutherland, Goodfellas’ Vincent Maraval and Recorded Picture Company’s Jeremy Thomas are set for the San Sebastian Festival’s 2024 Creative Investors’ Conference, co-organised for the third year running in collaboration with CAA Media Finance.

The Conference runs Sept. 24-25 at San Sebastian’s Tabakalera center.

Other high-profile execs confirmed as the world’s film industry debates ways forward for growth –despite still lagging post-pandemic box office recovery and the contraction of global streamer investment – are Netflix’s Teresa Moneo, Mubi’s Bobby Allen, Anton Corp.’s Louis Balsan, Charades’ Yohann Conte, Caroline Benjo at France’s Haut et Court, David Davoli at Anonymous Content, Infinity Hill’s Axel Kuchevatzsky, Good Chaos’ Mike Goodridge, Matías Mosteirín at K&s Films, Bronte Payne at Margot Robbie’s LuckyChap Entertainment, Killer Films’ Christine Vachon and Michael Weber at The Match Factory.

Sutherland, from CAA Media Finance as well as...

Adam Elliot’s animated feature Memoir Of A Snail featuring Sarah Snook in its voice cast has sealed deals for key international territories, ahead of its world premiere at Annecy International Animation Film Festival next week, for Anton and Charades.

The film has sold to Benelux (Bantam), Spain (Madfer), Switzerland (Pathe), Austria (Polyfilm), Denmark (Angel Film), Norway (Arthaus), Iceland (Bio Paradis), Sweden and remaining Scandinavian territories (Folkets Bio), Taiwan (Hooray Films), Cis (Magic Films), Israel (Lev Cinema), Turkey (Bir Film), Adriatics (McF Megacom), Thailand (Sahamongkol), India (Pictureworks) and airlines (Aardwolf).

Anton and Charades are co-representing sales on the stop-motion feature,...

In this instalment of Screen’s Cannes Close-Up interview series, Louis Balsan – EVP for distribution and acquisitions at production, financing, and sales outfit Anton – shares his insider tips for festival novices, and reveals his most memorable Cannes deal that was closed in the tiny cabin of a yacht.

Balsan is in Cannes with stop-motion animation Savages, from My Life As A Zucchini director Claude Barras, which has its world premiere at the festival.

Attendees should “prioritise films and build the rest of your schedule around that and not the other way around,” says Balsan. “The drinks and all – that’s nice.

Exclusive: IFC Films has acquired North American rights to Memoir of a Snail, a stop-motion drama from Adam Elliot — the writer-director behind the Academy Award-winning 2004 short Harvie Krumpet.

Marking the first lead voice role for star Sarah Snook (Succession), and Elliot’s second stop-motion feature on the heels of 2009’s Mary and Max — also distributed by IFC — the film centers on the life of Grace Pudel, a lonely misfit with an affinity for collecting ornamental snails and an intense love of romance novels. At a young age, when she’s separated from her twin brother, she falls into a spiral of anxiety and angst. Despite a continued series of hardships, inspiration and hope emerge when she strikes up an enduring friendship with an elderly eccentric woman named Pinky. As she slowly learns to let go of the clutter in her home and her mind, Grace starts to find her confidence...

Exclusive: Rising British actor Callum Turner is set to star alongside Norway’s Kristine Kujath Thorp and Sweden’s Gustav Lindh in Dara Van Dusen’s A Prayer For The Dying.

Anton and New Europe Films sales have co-acquired international rights for the upcoming English-language survival thriller.

Based on a novel by Stewart O’Nan, the film takes place in 1870 in Friendship, Wisconsin, a small town of Scandinavian settlers still suffering the repercussions of the recent Civil War.

When faced with a new and even deadlier threat, one man is forced to make a harrowing choice: save his young family or defend the community that gave him a second chance at life and meaning.

The film will shoot in early summer 2024.

New Europe CEO Jan Naszewski said of the feature: “Rarely can we...

Exclusive: David Harbour (Stranger Things), Paul Sun-Hyung Lee, Scott Thompson (The Kids In The Hall), and Gabbi Kosmidis (Unicorn Academy) are among voice cast attached for international animation Night Of The Zoopocalypse, which Anton and Charades are launching for the AFM.

The Canadian-French-Belgian family-comedy will follow a group of animals who transform into zombies after their zoo is hit by a meteor. Above is a first look image from the film.

Anton and Charades, who will co-rep world sales, will unveil first footage at the AFM later this month. It marks the first joint sales collaboration for the London and Paris-based companies.

The film is co-directed by veteran animators and story artists Ricardo Curtis (The Incredibles) and Rodrigo Perez-Castro (Ferdinand) whose combined credits, in various roles, include hits such as the Ice Age films, Rio, and The Angry Birds Movie through animation pre-production studio House of Cool...

Signature Entertainment has acquired U.K. and Ireland rights to revenge thriller “Femme.”

The film centers on Jules, whose life and career as a drag queen is destroyed by a homophobic attack. But when he re-encounters his attacker, the deeply-closeted Preston, in a gay sauna, he is presented with a chance to exact revenge. Unrecognizable out of his wig and make-up, Jules infiltrates Preston’s life, and in doing so, discovers power in a different kind of drag.

The film is the debut feature from Sam H. Freeman and Ng Choon Ping, based on their 2021 BIFA-winning and BAFTA-nominated short film of the same name.

The London-set neo-noir stars Nathan Stewart-Jarrett (“Candyman”), George MacKay (“1917”) and John McCrea (“Cabaret”). It is produced by Myles Payne and Sam Ritzenberg of Agile Films and co-produced by Hayley Williams for Agile. Marnie Podos of Under New Mgmt executive produced alongside Eva Yates, director of...

“My Life As a Zucchini” director Claude Barras has set up his latest stop-motion animated feature, “Savages!”

Production company Gebeka International — a Hildegarde-Goodfellas company formed in 2021 — and production, financing and sales studio Anton are behind the project, which will be written by Barras and Catherine Paille (“Magnetic Beasts”). The project will be shopped to buyers in Cannes next week.

“Savages!” follows the emotional journey of a girl, her father and a rescued baby orangutan. The film has a strong environmental and conservationist message, exploring the crisis of the destruction of rainforests.

An official synopsis for the film reads as follows: “In Borneo, at the edge of the tropical forest, Kéria is given a baby orangutan that has been rescued from the palm oil plantation where her father works. At the same time, Kéria’s younger cousin Selaï comes to live with her and her father as he seeks refuge from...

Puerto Rican title ‘The Fisherman’s Daughter’ takes best international project.

Polish director Michał Marczak’s black comedy Certainly The End Of Something was named the winner of the Screen International’s best pitch award at the 21st edition of the Baltic Event’s Co-Production Market at the Black Nights International Film Festival in Tallinn this week

Written by Marczak with Pawel Demirski, the feature project centres on a woman from a notorious Warsaw neighbourhood, who kidnaps a kingpin of the “gentrification mafia” who are destroying her beloved district.

Marczak said he planned “to tell a highly nuanced tale of...